Roger Taylor - Farnor

Nilsson cleared his throat as he remembered the incident. Then, the lights dancing behind the lids of his closed eyes darkened and the warmth on his face lessened. He opened his eyes abruptly, his hand moving to his knife.

‘Sorry to disturb you, Captain,’ said the sentry, who was standing between him and the sun. ‘But there’s a rider coming.’

Nilsson grunted and stood up. The sentry pointed.

‘I think it’s that kid from the farm,’ he said.

Nilsson leaned forward and screwed up his eyes.

It was the lad indeed. What was his name? Farnor or something, wasn’t it?

And coming at the gallop too.

‘Should I wake the Lord, Captain?’ the sentry asked. Nilsson shook his head and then smiled. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I think we can manage one tearful country brat on our own. If he gets this far without falling off that horse, that is. Throw the gate open for him. Let’s give him a real welcome.’

His smile broadened and unfurled into a low, un-pleasant laugh.

‘What d’you want, boy?’ Nilsson said, catching Farnor as he jumped down from his horse, missed his footing and stumbled. ‘Charging in like that. Someone’s going to get hurt.’

Farnor, flushed and breathless, did not hear the menace in Nilsson’s voice. He yanked his arm free. ‘Where’s Rannick?’ he demanded.

Nilsson’s eyes darted to the knife in Farnor’s belt. ‘Lord Rannick, do you mean?’ he said.

Farnor scowled, thrown momentarily off-balance by this unfamiliar appellation. ‘I don’t know anything about any lord,’ he said, holding Nilsson’s gaze. ‘Just get Rannick out here. Rannick the village labourer.’ He began to shout past Nilsson, his voice becoming shrill. ‘Rannick the village idiot! Rannick the fly trainer! Rannick the coward! Come out and face me, you murderer, Rannick!’

The circle of men that had begun to form expec-tantly about the protagonists fell suddenly quiet and widened noticeably. Even Nilsson found himself casting a quick glance over his shoulder for fear that Farnor’s petulant abuse might result in a violent reproach being brought down on his own head.

Farnor misunderstood the response, taking it to be due to the strength of the passion and hatred that was so possessing him. He made to step around Nilsson but a powerful hand seized his arm and dragged him back effortlessly.

‘Stay where you are, boy,’ Nilsson said, his lip curl-ing to bare his teeth.

Farnor took a wild swing at him, but Nilsson blocked it irritably and then dealt him an open-handed blow across the face that sent him reeling.

Garren Yarrance had had occasion in the past to chastise his son forcefully, and through the years Farnor had had an average exposure to physical violence in his noisy games and quarrels with his peers. But he had never felt anything like the blow he had just received. Apart from the pain, the body-jarring impact and the ringing in his ears, two things conspired to reduce him instantly to a tiny frightened shadow of what he had imagined himself to be. One was the truly terrifying sensation of having someone, for the first time ever, not only totally indifferent to his true self but actually intent on physically hurting him. The other was a chilling sense of total inadequacy before the power of this man.

Through his unfocused vision and the pounding in his head he was aware of the circle closing round him again, and of laughter urging on his assailant.

‘Go home, boy,’ he heard Nilsson saying. ‘The Lord Rannick won you your inheritance quite a time before you might have expected it. You should show some gratitude.’ There was more laughter. ‘Go round up your stock and start tending your farm. We’ll be needing plenty of food soon enough.’

Frightened child and angry man vied in Farnor. The one urged him to turn and flee. To break out of the circle, dash through the still-open gate and over the sunlit fields until he was surrounded by familiar and kindly faces; faces that knew and understood him; faces that would hold him secure and look after him in his torment. Profoundly shaken as he was by Nilsson’s blow, this voice within him was almost unbearably powerful.

Yet, too, there was a fury bubbling within him. A fury that fed on the laughter growing around him and that needed to strike out, to release the pain that he was suffering, to unleash it on anyone, anything, that stood in his way.

And, dimly, underlying everything, there was Ran-nick. The scowling, surly labourer who had always been a dark stain in his mind and who was now somehow the obscene focus of all that was happening. He felt again the bloodlust of the creature, burning hot and ancient within him. He wanted to see Rannick hurled against the wall like that pathetic squealing cat so many years ago. Hurled and hurled and hurled until he too became a limp rag doll of a thing like Garren Yarrance.

The memory of his slaughtered parents fired the fury beyond any controlling and it welled up to sweep all restraints aside. It seemed to him that his body was filled with a blood-red roaring and that he was scarcely in control of his actions. Distantly, he felt himself bending low and charging at the scornful figure that stood between him and the object of his hatred.

Then all was confusion, cruel pain and winding impact as, strong though he was, his wild inexperience fell easily before Nilsson’s greater strength, long-practised and bloody skills and clear-sighted malice.

Pain exploded in different parts of his body, quickly suffusing and accumulating until all he knew was pain. Vague images of the courtyard, of feet and faces and walls and towers, whirled through his vision. And he could do nothing to stop any of it. No part of him seemed to be his own.

Then there was a lull.

The brightness that was percolating through his half-closed eyes began to darken. But it was not the darkness of a merciful unconsciousness, he knew, for he was desperately, painfully awake; it was the circle of men closing around him to finish the work that their captain had started.

Hands seized him and dragged him to his feet. Loud advice was being shouted to someone followed by mocking laughter. The hands held him firm and an unclear silhouette positioned itself in front of him.

‘Leave him!’

The silhouette faltered, and the hands holding Far-nor eased their grip.

The words entered Farnor’s mind and spiralled through his pain and terror until they evoked recogni-tion.

Gryss!

Nilsson turned to face the source of this interfer-ence. Gryss moved forward out of the shade of the gate arch. He was leaning heavily on his horse for support, but his demeanour was angry and determined.

‘Leave him,’ he said again, ‘for pity’s sake. Isn’t it enough that you’ve slaughtered his family and de-stroyed his home? Do you have to break him too?’

‘Old man, go back to your salves and potions,’ Nils-son said menacingly. ‘Before you receive the same. He charged in here and attacked me. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him out of hand. All he’s getting now is a little instruc-tion on how to behave in the presence of his betters.’

Gryss’s mouth twisted with rage as he looked from Nilsson’s sneering face to Farnor’s bruised and bloody one. He caught the twitch in Nilsson’s eyes that responded to this and knew that, however justified his anger, he would merely prolong Farnor’s beating and receive one himself if he gave vent to it injudiciously. From somewhere he dragged out a reluctant diplomacy.

‘I’m sure he understands now,’ he said, forcing the anger from his voice. ‘He was always a quick learner. Let him go, Captain. He’s had enough.’

Nilsson met his gaze. He could feel Gryss struggling to master his fear. It would be no effort to kill the old man right away and then finish Farnor but, just as Gryss had fought down his immediate response, so did Nilsson. Rannick had seized the initiative in the matter of how the villagers were to be treated: perhaps to impose his will on his chosen lieutenant, perhaps for some darker motive that he himself did not fully understand. But it did not matter. The damage had been done, and it would fall to Nilsson now to control a hostile community that would be needed to service what would be a growing number of men at the castle.